In today's commercial transport fleets, aircraft emergency exits that are more than six feet above the ground are generally required to have approved systems to assist occupants to the ground in the event of an emergency. Generally, the approved system at each emergency exit is an inflatable evacuation slide installed at that exit.
For an over-wing emergency exit, or an emergency exit that is positioned in the fuselage above the wing of an aircraft, the current evacuation slide design is typically a slide extending aft off the trailing edge of the wing (parallel with the fuselage). In contrast, for a non-over-wing exit, the current evacuation slide design is typically a slide extending normal to the fuselage. Due to emergency exit spacing on some aircraft models and the lengths of the slides, it may be necessary to cant the off-wing evacuation slide outboard and cant an adjacent non-over-wing escape slide away from the wing to provide sufficient clearance between the two slides.
However, in many instances, canting an off-wing slide and an adjacent non-over-wing slide in order to provide adequate clearance between the two slides may increase the complexity of the slides and result in additional slide weight, pack volume and increased cost.
In some prior cases, aircraft equipped with side-by-side over-wing emergency exits have been configured with a single dual-lane evacuation slide that provides for egress via the wing. However, such dual-lane evacuation slides only serve exits that are adjacent to each other over a wing. Therefore, novel systems and methods which reduce the complexity, weight, pack volume, and cost associated with simultaneously providing the two types of slides for a plurality of non-adjacent emergency exits, would have utility.